and a revelation in a written crochet pattern that amigurumi could, gasp, use stitches larger or smaller than single crochet for the same shaping

A small test chest based on the two above items that said “Everything will be fine c:”

Armed with this set of ideas, I happily began my crochet doll with wire armature.

Her heart will be in her head.

Everything went fairly well at the start. As I settled into her chin, there was an increase in frogging.

But her neck. Ohhhh, her neck. Just six stitches around and only three rounds. Perhaps it was the circumference combined with the fingering weight yarn combined with the wire support combined with the low light. Whatever I had gotten myself into, I had to redo each round no less than twice. Once I even broke the yarn when it got too involved with itself to release the stitches properly. I pretended like I was adding a new color and went on.

I began to doubt my math abilities around the shoulders, often miscounting the stitches between increases and having to redo half a round. Eventually I got to the start of the chest area.

I have a big head and no arms

The chest might have been done by now if I had done it to the test specs and not tried to get even fancier while aiming for an exaggerated body shape. As it is, she’s currently a bit lop-sided and I think I’ll have to risk pulling out stitches again to get her looking better.

Not up to Grecian bust standards

I may figure out the chest in worsted weight just to avoid some hair pulling, though.

I noticed with the head that a lot of bumps and lumps did go away. The concern with the chest is that one side looks higher. I’ll try putting some fiberfill in before some angry stitch rescinding. Thanks for the suggestion 🙂